Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church with a complex building history spanning from the 13th century to the late 20th century. The structure is built of red sandstone random rubble with Ham stone dressings, a plinth, and slate roofs with coped verges.

The church comprises a three-bay nave, three-bay north aisle, west tower, south porch, chancel, and a north-east vestry and organ chamber added in 1900. The original 13th-century elements include the tower, east wall, and window. The nave was substantially refenestrated circa 1525–40, with a north aisle added at the same time. Further significant alterations occurred in the mid-19th century (circa 1853 and 1866), when the church was reseated, the north aisle refenestrated, the chancel largely rebuilt, and the east window restored. The south porch was rebuilt, and an upper stage was added to the tower. In 1900 a vestry and organ chamber were added, and in 1921 a new screen was inserted with some mid-19th-century work removed. Late 20th-century restoration work was also undertaken.

The four-stage tower has a saddleback roof with coped verges and diagonal buttresses to the second stage. The bell openings are two-light louvres in gable ends facing north and south, with corbelled string courses and four circular openings on the returns. Above the west door are two two-light windows with a chamfered two-centred arch opening and a 19th-century door. A stepped buttress is present to the north front. The north wall features two three-light cinquefoil-headed windows with angel terminals to the hoodmould, and a similar window with grotesque terminals to the right of the single-storey porch. The porch itself is gabled with diagonal buttresses and a Perpendicular-style entrance with a moulded Tudor arch inner doorway and 19th-century ribbed door. A 19th-century open wagon roof with bosses covers the porch interior. A cinquefoil-headed lancet window appears on the left return. An unusual Perpendicular monolithic red sandstone holy waterstoup decorated with a quatrefoil shield is located on the south front. A cinquefoil-headed single-light window serves the rood stair under a hood mould in the end bay, with a diagonal buttress nearby.

The chancel has 19th-century two-light windows flanking the priest's door and a three-light east window, with a two-light window serving the vestry. The south side features a buttressed aisle with a two-light east window, three 19th-century three-light mullioned windows (the central one set high above a blocked chamfered semi-circular-headed doorway), and a three-light west window.

The interior is rendered. A three-bay Perpendicular arcade runs through the nave with a respond at the east end; empty crocketed niches face the nave on two central piers. A 19th-century chancel arch, chamfered in two orders, is supported by a pointed unmoulded tower arch filled with a 19th-century carved wooden screen. Ceiled wagon roofs with wall plates and bosses cover the nave and aisle; the aisle bosses are particularly fine. The chancel has a 19th-century three-bay archbraced roof, partly painted and gilded. A hagioscope from the north aisle is blocked, beside which a Tudor arch rood stair doorway leads upward; a three-light opening above, dating to circa 1900, lights the organ chamber. Moulded hoodmoulds to the rear arches of the east window in the north aisle and the south-east window in the nave wall feature angel terminals with scrolls; the south-west window of the nave has moulded hoodmoulds but the terminals are missing.

The rood screen, dating to 1921, is a fine five-bay carved example, produced by a local woodworking class. A Perpendicular octagonal font is present. A painted reredos in the north aisle was created by Christopher Webber and dated 1943. Mid-19th-century panelling survives on the north wall of the chancel. The floor of the nave contains early 17th-century and early 18th-century slate tablets, with no other notable memorials. An iron-bound medieval chest is present. Stained glass in the chancel dates to 1856.